Radars are useful devices that can detect and track objects, map surfaces, and recognize targets. In many cases, a radar may replace bulky and expensive sensors, such as a camera, and provide improved performance in the presence of different environmental conditions, such as low lighting and fog, or with moving or overlapping targets.
While it may be advantageous to use radar sensing, there are many challenges associated with incorporating radar sensors in commercial devices. Smaller consumer devices, for example, place restrictions on a size of the radar sensor, which can limit performance. Furthermore, conventional radars use custom-designed radar-specific hardware to generate radar-specific signals. This hardware can be expensive and require additional space in consumer devices, if incorporated. As a result, consumer devices are unlikely to incorporate radar sensors due to the additional cost and space constraints.